This immediately solves this problem of temporary tinnitus and helps the individual restore their normal hearing that they had prior to the sound trauma. Because the temporary tinnitus is eliminated or severely reduced, the stress of the situation diminishes, the residual headache associated with the ringing decreases and the ability to concentrate, relax or sleep increases. All of this is achieved within the time it takes for sound to move through the cochlear hairs. That is why our therapy lasts only one minute and is completely safe. It addresses the root of the problem in the same way as the original problem was caused. It also uses sound to manipulate the hairs and since the hairs were designed to respond to sound, they adjust themselves very quickly and without undue stress.
Somtus™ is a scientifically tested and verified method used to reverse an over stimulation of the ear. It will not re-grow hairs that have been broken by excessive damage but it will gently move the bent and interfering hairs back into their natural position. Thus the temporary tinnitus is very short lived and the individual can go back to their original state of hearing and get on with their life.
Because of its ease of access and fast results, it is an ideal method of removing temporary tinnitus caused by very loud sound and therefore it is highly suitable for use after concerts, listening to headphones too loudly or even being in a loud city environment for too long. The majority of our clients find it very useful before going to sleep or after arriving home. Although we strongly recommend limiting your exposure to loud noise so as to avoid broken hairs and permanent damage, this is a solution to one of the problems faced by millions every day.
Available online at any time of the day or night, and also as an iPhone application for those out and about.

Coming second in the 2009 Young Scientist competition was a ‘blessing in disguise’ for the students who have launched their project as a business.

WHEN LEAVING Certificate students Rhona Togher and Eimear O’Carroll lost out on winning the 2009 Young Scientist competition, they were devastated. But coming second was actually a godsend for the pair who developed a therapy to alleviate temporary tinnitus, as it gave them the opportunity to expand their project into a business.

Most music fans will know the ringing sensation experienced after a night spent clubbing or at a concert. The loud ringing in the ears is a common occurrence caused by exposure to loud environments, for example listening to music on mp3 players or from operating machinery.

As part of their Young Scientist project, Togher and O’Carroll, along with fellow Ursuline College Sligo student Niamh Chapman, developed a one-minute web-based therapy to clear the ears of the ringing sensation.

In loud environments damage is done to the sound receptor cells in the cochlea, the part of the ear which converts wave vibrations into electric signals before sending these signals onto the brain. When these receptor cells get bent or damaged during exposure to the loud noises, signals continue to be sent to the brain even after the exposure to the noise has ceased. This results in a continued perception of a noise that isn’t there.

The minute-long therapy developed by the students is based on sound and wave theory, and uses a low hum to physically stimulate the cochlear hairs back into their original upright position.
“If we had won the competition, we wouldn’t have been able to set up the company as we would have had to further the project for other competitions. Losing was actually a blessing in disguise, though we were devastated at the time,” Togher says.

Following the competition, Togher and O’Carroll further developed the therapy, after they were contacted by numerous people looking for it, and began offering it to members of the public for free.

“In May 2009, just before we sat our exams, the county enterprise board in Sligo contacted us and told to incorporate and start charging for our product. We hadn’t a clue as we only had Junior Certificate business, so we incorporated with our teacher, Anthony Carolan.”

The three officially launched their website in August 2009, with 700 people purchasing the therapy on the first day. Since then, more than 6,500 people worldwide have purchased it.
“This morning we had a purchase from China. I have no idea how they heard about the product as our marketing budget is zero. We rely on word of mouth. A while back a friend heard our product being discussed on national radio in the United States. It was crazy. We’ve no idea how the radio station heard about us.”

The therapy sessions, which have a 99 per cent success rate, can be purchased singly for €2.50 by SMS payment or in batches of 10 for €15 using a credit card.
“A lot of our customers have long-term tinnitus/permanent hearing damage. They use the therapy every day, so we started a subscription payment system too. It costs €30 for unlimited uses for a month.”

Togher is on a year-out from her physics degree developing new technology for noise-cancelling headphones, while O’Carroll is embarking on a clinical trial of the tinnitus therapy as part of her physics degree at the University of Edinburgh.

“We are running a clinical trial on our website with initial results due in December. We can’t get FDA approval without a clinical trial, so that’s why we’re doing it. Right now there is only one FDA-approved tinnitus product in the US, but that’s for permanent damage. There is no equivalent of our product.”

O’Carroll is heading up the trial as part of her master’s degree research, with the British Tinnitus Association providing test candidates for the trial.

The students hope to launch noise-cancelling headphones in the next few months. “We saw a lot of noise cancelling headphones on the market, but they were all very expensive, often costing a few hundred. We thought there had to be a way to develop the technology cheaper.”.
The students developed generic noise-cancelling headphones which can be made for as little as €3, as well as specialist ones which are tailored to block out a particular sound. They hope to manufacture them in their hometown of Sligo.

“If you were using a jackhammer and wearing our specialised tone headphones, you’d hear all the noise around you including someone talking to you, but you wouldn’t hear the sound of the jackhammer. The headphones can be tailored to block out any noise, for example the sound of a helicopter,” says Togher.

The students have patented both their tinnitus therapy and noise-cancelling technology.

The trial, beginning in September, will be conducted at the University of Edinburgh where
one of its directors, Eimear O’Carroll, is currently a postgraduate physics student.
Using physics to solve problems with hearing, Restored Hearing is keen to get scientific
feedback on its sound therapy. Director Eimear O’Carroll said “We already have permanent
tinnitus sufferers who receive benefit from using our therapy every day. With this new
clinical trial we aim to find out what common characteristics these people have and the
extent of the effectiveness of our sound therapy for them.”
Individuals (over 18 years of age) who have had tinnitus for between 2 and 15 years are
eligible for the free trial and there is no geographic restriction.
Candidates will need regular access to the internet and email in order to take part in the 4-
week trial and those who are interested are invited to apply via tinnitustrial@gmail.com.

I'm not sold on Restored Hearing for a number of reasons.
There is a simplistic...almost too easy..."cure" that a young lass has developed; but in watching or listening to her communicate her thoughts...it's not what I would call the language of Science. It is however, a plug for youthful entrepreneurs at one gathering called "Power of Youth."

Will Restored Hearing's sound therapy work? I may never know. I did just finish the Study Group for ST this past month as a member of the Control Group (always a control group...never a bride) that spent a few minutes each week answering survey questions in two tiers; submitting and waiting for the pay-off from being a participant.

The pay-off came in the form of a link to the general page for Restored Hearing and the directions to sign up and then apply for a Rolling term of treatments...the 2nd least expensive. This treatment is FREE....however, the punch line would be using my credit card as part of my application (or other obligation device) which on the International list of things that raise red-flags...this is one.

Eimear...thank you for allowing me to give you my information up front to qualify for your series of treatments; the number of survey questions in a 1-10 ranking of severity or positive/negative responses; all these things I shared with you.
Now it's time for ME to share my line of credit overseas where terrible things can and do happen in trying to fix problems on the International flair of problems. I did trust you with my information, my time and honest survey answers...the least you could do is trust me with a FREE month that didn't tacitly compromise my paltry funds.

In my 12 going on 13 years of dealing with Tinnitus....I've had my share of snake oil salespeople in long white coats. In fact there are more of them than the homeopathic routes that are available. One thing is for certain, the long white coats demand more money....one was $40,000 (usd) for hyperbaric treatments and the other was about $15,000 to sever and section the aural nerve of my right ear. There was NO guarantee on the hyperbaric treatments. There was a guarantee on the surgery....I would be stone deaf in the right ear; however.....and a big friggin' however...NO guarantee that the nerve cutting would end the Tinnitus noise.

In this country....it would be doubtful of a jury of my peers convicting me for the end results that I would cause a long white coat should the surgical procedure have failed as described above.

So yes...I'm a little put out on the Restored Hearing methods here. I can see how a big crowd of desperation signs on in throngs for a series of tests (or in my case, control group) and then invited to join the RH treatment center....but come on....provide credit card information on the "Free 30 Day Trial" offered to everyone as one would signing on for a Free 30 Day Trial to a general porn site (or so I've been told).

I had the greatest of hopes for Restored Hearing when I first read the news via ATA for volunteers. However, with further study of persons involved, the relatively sudden loss of the Restored Hearing facebook site and the frustration of paralleling this experience with past experiences these long 13 years.....Restored Hearing's stock has taken a sharp decline.

Regarding payment, they accept PayPal. I will sign up for the free month as there is nothing to lose.
Using PayPal they wont see my credit card details and its easy to cancel the recurring payment through PayPal.

I wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing good news about the treatment. We appear to both have about the length of time involved from onset, so I feel certain you're attuned to all things that may change anything in audio level or pitch.

Heck, I was all set with my headphones yesterday, too.<G Good luck and thanks for the note.

I found a Young Entrepreneur video of the principal partner for R/H.....I didn't detect a lot of science in her comments for such a simplistic procedure; the video seemed more intent to bleat success as a young entrepreneur....which seems to be the biggest response to a search engine of her name. Entrepreneur first....the basis for her entrepreneurial aspirations via Tinnitus appears to take a far second.

I did participate in the Study this year....surprise....I was one of the hordes of Control Group members that answered the same survey questions each week. The pay-off was purportedly a 30 day trial of the sound therapy; as long as you signed up with Pay Pal or your credit card information.

As I wrote to comment to the principal and contact person...."it was completely alright for me to complete the surveys with my answers based upon my experience with Tinnitus and my weekly level; along with my application information to share to R/A....but not so fast when it comes to the 30 day free trial; we need your credit card or pay pal information.

Since I live in the US....it just didn't seem prudent to palm off my credit card information when trying to fix credit card problems with the US is a chore; but, trying to resolve any potential credit card information problems on an International turf? Negative. Nope. Nyet. Uh uh. Nein and just No. If the response for the study yielded a few hundred or a few thousand applicants...the percentage of those signing in out of desperation or curiosity just has the appearance of a great target marketing tactic.

Again..the red flag of my participation with all the information that R/A needed only to find out my pay off would be subject to further information....Pay Pal or credit card just lost all the appeal of a hopeful cure. I'm sorry to hear that the folks getting to try out the 30 day free effort didn't find any positive results....so it's starting to look like yet another "T-Cure" going no where.

I received an e-mail from the trial yesterday. It claims a success (15% reduction) but from what they have printed it appears to be a very poor result indeed.

On the two charts of the questionnaires used to measure the results, the first shows a 7.6% decrease for those on the treatment, the second shows around a 9% decrease for those on the treatment (which is also pretty close to the reduction of those who got no treatment).

I know the percentage change math is right, I'm not the best at it but it's pretty basic (I even used an online calculator to double check), so how did they arrive at an average 15% decrease in severity? The average is 8.3% (9 + 7.6 / 2)?

The control group (who just completed the questionnaire and had no treatment) had an average decrease of about 4%.

They have a claim on their site now that the therapy has been clinically proven to give 15% reduction after 1 month; I don't see that this has been shown, unless there is something I'm missing. To me this only shows that it's worth considering a proper, placebo controlled, double blind randomised controlled trial to see if this small improvement is significant when properly tested.

I'm critical of this because of the way it's being used. If they said that it was a first trial, the results seem good so they will progress to a placebo controlled trial, fair enough. The fact is that they stacked the deck to make sure the results were positive and are now marketing it as a proof; it isn't robust enough to be a proof so just doesn't feel right to me.

There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path - Siddhartha Gautama

Hi all,
Thanks for getting in touch about the tinnitus clinical trial that ran from September last year, I really appreciated your volunteering. The trial has now finished.
Many of you expressed the wish to be informed of the results so I'm attaching a short summary of the results.
The trial was positive and the therapy is now available on restoredhearing.com if you wish to try it. If you have any questions please get in touch with me or with info@restoredhearing.com.
Kind regards, S
Eimear
--
Eimear O' Carroll
Masters of Physics
University of Edinburgh
E: tinnitustrial@gmail.com

Attached Files:

Yep, i got the same email yesterday. They had my information as i signed up to participate in their study, but was turned down as they said they had too many volunteers...that was last year. I was notified by email by the American Tinnitus Association of this study.

Well, i don't know what to make of this. I would like to hear from others out there that participated in this study or are using the program before i part with funds for this.

It is very uplifting that another therapy has become available. However so, i've been let down soo much before...that i don't even blink when another comes our way.

Thanks for the follow up. I read your post and totally agree with you that 15% is not enough. Quite frankly, sound therapies in general are useless and offer no remediation. I have used Sound Cure for several weeks and it only made the noise get louder....not softer as they advertised....and saying that it works for some and not others is just a catch 45 in hopes you'll catch 45 suckers.

Yep....that is my take on sound therapy. The real way is medicine. This is where the focus should be.

Thanks for the follow up. I read your post and totally agree with you that 15% is not enough. Quite frankly, sound therapies in general are useless and offer no remediation. I have used Sound Cure for several weeks and it only made the noise get louder....not softer as they advertised....and saying that it works for some and not others is just a catch 45 in hopes you'll catch 45 suckers.

Yep....that is my take on sound therapy. The real way is medicine. This is where the focus should be.

Thanks again Steve.

Click to expand...

Sound therapy is a very difficult thing because we all have different reactions to sounds, built over a lifetime of listening. Take music: My idea of beautiful melody could be as boring as hell to you. Your idea of a soul touching warmth could leave me cold. I could love one sound and that very same sound could be painful for you to listen to.

I think that some people can benefit from it but not when you have a "one size fits all" approach. I think that it would take the creator of the sound therapy sitting down with each individual and really going through the reactions to lots of different sounds and patterns to get it right. At the price some of these companies charge that seems perfectly feasible to me, but alas it doesn't happen.

If you tested the 15% of this particular therapy (which is misreported from what I see and should be 8%) against placebo, I wouldn't be surprised if it showed very little positive effect.

There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path - Siddhartha Gautama